CHARLOTTESVILLE - The Virginia men's and women's track and field teams will have 16 athletes compete this week at the NCAA East Preliminary Round Meet. The meet will be held May 23-25 at the Irwin Belk Track inside of Aggie Stadium on the campus of North Carolina A&T in Greensboro.

Each individual event (excluding the heptathlon and decathlon) will have 48 competitors, while relays will have 24 teams. The top 12 from every event will move on to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, to be held in Eugene, Ore., on June 5-8.

Virginia will have eight women and eight men competing in 15 events at the preliminary meet. Eleven of the 16 athletes have competed in a NCAA preliminary meet previously in their career.

ACC 400m champion Jordan Lavender is one of three Cavaliers who will compete in two events at the meet, as she was also selected in the 200m. Thomas Porter will compete in the men's 5,000m and 10,000m, while Barbara Strehler will compete in both the 5,000m and 10,000m on the women's side.

The Cavaliers have four athletes who are among the top 10 seeds at the meet. Abbey Karin is seeded sixth in the women's javelin, Anthony Kostelac is seeded sixth in the men's 800m, Vicky Fouhy is seeded eighth in the women's 1,500m and Moira Cronin is seeded ninth in the women's high jump.

In the men's running events, Mark Amirault will join Porter in the 5,000m. Payton Hazzard will compete in the 400m, while Brandon Burton was selected in the 400m hurdles. For the second consecutive year, Taylor Gilland will run the 1,500m at the meet, and Colin Mearns will compete in the 3,000m steeplechase. Ryan Satchell will represent the Cavalier field event athletes as he earned a place in the meet in the triple jump for the second straight year.